Down and Out in Utopia : Unemployment As Moral Education in Norway

Imagine that you have just lost your job. You wonder: “Who or what can I depend on now?” The answer, it turns out, varies significantly depending on where you live. In Norway, a small European social democracy, you would almost certainly turn to the country’s comprehensive public welfare system. With a work history, you could be eligible for two years of unemployment benefits that replace upwards of 62% of your previous salary. Meanwhile, you would not be too worried about covering other major expenses: annual out-of-pocket healthcare costs are capped at a few hundred dollars, parents receive monthly payments per child, public education is tuition-free, and pensions are guaranteed. What would this experience teach you about government, work, taxes, and freedom?

In Down and Out in Utopia, anthropologist Kelly McKowen explains what happens to those without jobs in one of the world’s wealthiest and most egalitarian countries. Following the daily lives of a diverse group of unemployed individuals during the “oil crash” of the mid-2010s, he shows that being “down and out” in a social democracy offers people a unique moral education with lessons about the nature and value of the state, labour, welfare, and belonging.
Engaging, timely, and illuminating, Down and Out in Utopia makes the case that through social policy, we shape life’s hardships – and these hardships, in turn, shape us and how we view the world.